@Kulfy Oh, you're Indian? Where do you live?

Suggested edits with comments mentioning “grammer” always fill me with confidence ;-).

Does anyone think that staying up to date with the Libreoffice buster backport is worth it?

I don't know anything about Libreoffice, including how fast it is changing.

If 6.1 works for you, I’d stick with that for now...

@StephenKitt As mentioned a bit above, that strikethrough thing wasn't working for me. Of course, I might have been doing something wrong.

@FaheemMitha I guess that answers your question then ;-)

@FaheemMitha For work, Pune. Soon will be shifting to Bangaluru :)

@StephenKitt What answers my question? I'm not even sure what question you're referring to. Apologies if I'm being obtuse.

@Kulfy Working from home?

@StephenKitt Ok, so that's the question. And the answer is?

Since 6.1 doesn’t work for you, you might as well try the backport. That doesn’t quite answer the question about keeping up with backports, but it’s a start...

@StephenKitt The overwrite thing didn't work. I wonder if it's worth upgrading just for that. And I guess I'm generally reluctant because of my general detestation of word processors.

I'm sorry if this comes across as irrational hostility. I hope it doesn't.

I upgrade other things all the time, including TeX Live. Actually I need to upgrade that to 2020.

@FaheemMitha it doesn’t come across as hostile as far as I’m concerned ;-). But it is somewhat surprising given how much you use backports!

@StephenKitt It's true, I do backport quite a bit.

Anyone familiar with something called slack?

slack.com.

@FaheemMitha For now, yes.

@FaheemMitha yes, it’s used extensively in the Kubernetes community

@StephenKitt Oh. Just created an account there. Or possibly on a subsite. Don't really know what I can do with. For RhodeCode support.

@Kulfy Assuming you are from Maharashtra (and even if you aren't), how does the overall situation look like to you?

I live in Bombay, and it seems to be increasingly clear that the situation is akin to a car without a driver. And I'm not referring to one of those self-driving cars.

Now up to 20,000 new cases a day.

@FaheemMitha IMO the situation could be handled better if politics wasn't involved. Politics made people playing blame game. Also, AIIMS Delhi's director already assumed that we're going to have many cases in Jun-July. People are also helpless. They need to go out to earn their living. So, I'll say difficult situation. As people say "bura waqt hai katt jaega". I'm just being optimistic.

@FaheemMitha Bombay is the worst affected city. Stay safe :)

@Kulfy I'm reading this as something like "this too shall pass".

@FaheemMitha Yeah. (I assume you know Hindi. :))

@Kulfy Testing levels are ridiculously low, especially here. The last I heard they were doing like 5000 tests for Bombay. No wonder the virus cases are rising.

@Kulfy In a manner of speaking.

I guess interfering with people's movements is easier (and much cheaper) than actually testing them. Though economic collapse may not be so cheap.

@FaheemMitha The index case was in Pune merely 2 kms away from my place before Holi. I got to know after Holi o.O

@Kulfy You mean, like Patient Zero?

@FaheemMitha Yeah in Maharashtra.

South Korea did a lot of testing. It's doing better than India. Just saying.

@FaheemMitha Not really. Especially when you have liquor shops open. IYKWIM.

@Kulfy Um. Not sure I follow.

@FaheemMitha South Korea's population is less than even Bihar -_-

@Kulfy Yes, I know. So what?

@FaheemMitha You must remember the way people reacted when liquor shops got opened. There were numerous people outside in the queue

@FaheemMitha IMO managing and testing people depends on the population too.

@Kulfy I imagine there were plenty of people wanting to get drunk yes. But I'm still not following.

There are instances here in the country where people who tested positive are being discriminated and because of that other people are afraid to go for a test.

@Kulfy I think people would be quite happy to get tested. But the govt can't be bothered, apparently. I assume you are familiar with the reputation of the BMC?

@Kulfy Hmm, yes, that's a good point, actually.

India showing its supreme grasp of rationality, as usual.

Regardless, more testing would be much better for a lethal disease with a long incubation period.

Indeed.

If the same rate continues, India will soon overtake Russia

@Kulfy At the very least.

And in 20 days may overtake even Brazil.

@Kulfy Quite so.

Let's see how work culture would change and how long will the change last.

I would kind of prefer not to spend the next six months indoors. I don't get out much, but even I am getting tired of this.

I wonder if the Indian govt understands what an exponential function is. I would bet money that Modi would fail a basic math test. For example.

The thing which bothers me is that our home minister is still busy in rallies -_-

@Kulfy Lots of things bother me about our home minister. That one wouldn't be particularly high on my list.

And our FM logics are just beyond any science or maths logics. I don't mean to criticize anyone. But still these things bothers me

BTW, I see you appear to be an Ubuntu user, and I don't recall seeing you on the chat before. Not a regular on this site, I guess. I don't think there are lot of *nix users in India even now, but my information could be out of date.

@Kulfy I don't see why you can't criticize anyone. Go right ahead.

I'm not really following the finance stuff, but with the RSS running India, bad things are bound to happen, and keep happening. The pandemic is just the icing on the cake.

Also, the stock markets are behaving kind of strangely.

We're having a thunderstorm here, though it seems to be easing off.

@FaheemMitha Yes I'm an Ubuntu user. I occasionally lurks in this chatroom but very much active on Ask Ubuntu and it's chatroom. For work I have to use Windows.

@Kulfy Oh, yes, Windows. What is your impression on Linux system usage in India in recent years? Is it climbing, stable, or decreasing?

And do you happen to be an ex-IIT grad, by any chance? Just a shot in the dark.

@FaheemMitha Lol No. If I were an IIT graduate, I would have been in US or Japan :P

@Kulfy Oh, you would?

@FaheemMitha People are adapting slowly but gradually. For example, Kerala government has their own Linux distribution based on Ubuntu called IT@School. In my experience people see Linux users as advance which is false especially when you're using Ubuntu, Linux Mint or ElementaryOS. I'm sticking to Ubuntu because of stability and being habitual of APT. Once I tried to move to Fedora but APT dragged me back to Ubuntu.

And then there's Ask Ubuntu which feels like my home :)

@FaheemMitha Yeah. Planning for masters from there by the way. Targeting Bombay or Kharagpur.

@Kulfy "people see Linux users as advance". You mean "advanced"?

@Kulfy Hmm.

@FaheemMitha Yeah. I just shifted to mobile chat and it's just 😑

You don't think they are "advanced", then?

Well advanced was once a novice. It was his/her curiosity which made him/her advanced.

And I hear the AU chat room is quite chatty, though I've never spent time there.

It's been really quite since past year. Because of mess on MSE, many people stopped lurking and even participating :(

We only get feeds from u&l about Ubuntu question there.

I'm actually active in the other chatroom which is meant for moderation purposes.

@Kulfy Mess on MSE?

@Kulfy Questions with an Ubuntu tag?

@FaheemMitha Yeah. Because of which we lost some mods including terdon. :/

@Kulfy Are you from Kerala?

@FaheemMitha Exactly.

@FaheemMitha Nope.

@Kulfy Was it the pronouns thing, or something else?

@FaheemMitha Yeah and firing mods and CMs

@Kulfy Yes, I remember all that.

It's a shame when online communities get damaged.

Sad to see people leaving the communities.

Though it's always risky when a corporation is running things.

Yeah but they should stick to their main goal and always remember that the people who visit them are the same people who create content for them.

@Kulfy Humans aren't so good at remembering things.

But yes, it's a pity, because SE is, or was, quite functional by the standards of the Internet. It's a jungle out there.

Indeed

Hi peeps, do you know these basic concept/terminology questions

Thanks.

How do you merge many pdfs in a fixed order

In MacOS

From terminal

I have many pdfs numbered 1 through... okay I don't have them all yet

@Tim I agree with those definitions, though I would personally also accept e.g. randomised algorithms that aren't absolutely guaranteed to terminate as "algorithms" in a broad sense, and I would also informally call the potentially-non-terminating computation in e.g. defining a recursively-enumerable set an algorithm (and rarely if ever does the sufficiently-formal situation for distinguishing them come up for me).

@Tim In so saying, that means that somebody describing something as an algorithm does not imply that they are actually claiming it terminates for all inputs, so it's a definition with only very specific context-sensitive value

@MichaelHomer Thanks. Your def of algorithm makes sense. I don't know why I thought an algorithm must terminates on all inputs. Both Hopcroft's and Sisper's books agree with your definition.

Sisper's book and Kozen's book call TMs which always halt "deciders" and "total TMs" respectively.

@Tim I think, strictly, they should terminate, but the term has been expanded beyond that in actual use. I imagine in TCS & computability theory papers they use it in that sense to contrast with potentially non-terminating programs, for example, but most people aren't writing those

In complexity theory, is it correct that algorithms always halt on all inputs?

In algorithm design, such as Cormen's Introduction to Algorithms, and other books, is it correct that algorithms might not always halt?

I would imagine that that book gives a definition of "algorithm" that it's going to use

What is your impression from your previous studies and readings?

My impression is that focusing on prescriptive terminology shorn of context is unproductive

If I may ask, do your have favorite (generic) algorithm (design) books, and if yes, what are they?

Cormen's, Aho's, Kleinberg's, Sedgewick's ...?

I have some books somewhere, but I do not have a favourite

I do own Kleinberg & Tardos

Cormen called his book "Introduction". Is it at a lower level than Aho's, Kleinberg's, Sedgewick's?

Kozen also has one

I don't know

The table of contents looks like a reasonable progression

CLRS defines a "correct algorithm" as always halting, and then discusses incorrect algorithms too, so if you're using that then there's your definition

If you want to read an algorithms book cover to cover this looks reasonable enough (but I still suggest that there may be more productive uses of time)

Thanks for reminding